Unexpected seismic activity

Two earthquakes took place in a Romanian region where such phenomena are quite rare

Ştefan Stoica, 15.02.2023, 14:00

Two earthquakes
rocked for two consecutive days the south-western regions of Romania. The first
with a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter scale took place on Monday and had 16
aftershocks. The second one, more powerful with a 5.7 magnitude took place at a
depth of 7 kilometers and was also felt in other regions of Romania, including
in Bucharest. These two earthquakes came at a time when the death toll of those
that hit Turkey and Syria last week is on the rise. Romania’s main seismic area
is Vrancea in south-east, so the latest earthquakes in the country’s south-west
came as a surprise mainly to those studying the phenomenon. Here is the
director of the Institute for Earth Physics, Constantin Ionescu.

Constantin Ionescu:The area has rarely seen any earthquakes and
those that happened there before were of low magnitudes, of 3, 2, 1 degrees.
And it came as a surprise to us the fact that the area became active again. A
couple of earthquakes was reported in that area in the past but never with
magnitudes over 4 degrees. From the geological point of view, the tectonic
plates moved vertically. Both of them shared the same mechanism, it was a
tandem, so to say. And the second one wasn’t an aftershock.

There were no
victims but the first quake caused panic, which was probably fuelled by the
recent Turkish-Syrian tragedy. The two earthquakes had effects in three
counties in the country’s southwest though.

Here is now Raed
Arafat, the head of Romania’s Department for Emergency Situations.

Raed Arafat: The
effects of these two earthquakes have been felt in six towns and villages in
three counties, Gorj, Dolj and Mehedinţi. Fifty emergency calls have been
registered but people mainly called in about their cracked walls or to report some elements of masonry that had collapsed.
Initially there were rumors about a destroyed building, which eventually proved
false. Several panic attacks have also been reported by means of the 112
emergency number.

More serious issues
appeared in the Gorj county on the national road crossing the Jiu Gorges, which
was blocked by fallen boulders and the intervention of road workers was needed.
In Târgu Jiu, capital of the Gorj county, the tremors caused damage to the
buildings of the City Hall and the Prefect’s Office. They also caused
disruptions in the electricity and gas supplies, which resumed shortly.

State secretary
Arafat has drawn attention to the fact that panic can lead to a series of
mistakes during an earthquake and can even prove deadly. According to him
people must train to get a better reaction in situations like these. An
application, which can be accessed at the portal of the Emergency Situations
Department, comprises a series of recommendations on how to behave before,
during and after an earthquake.

(bill)